Almost every day, newspapers publish advertisements by banking courts asking defaulters to pay or face legal action (usually resulting in their properties being auctioned). Sometimes the loans are as low as half a million rupees. So can anyone explain why loans amounting to Rs 60 billion were written off during the Musharraf era? One favoured politician got away with a 110 million rupees. Could not the banks have followed the prescribed procedure for these big defaulters as well? Perhaps there are different laws for bigger criminals. After this loot and plunder by the bigwigs, on what grounds can banks take legal action against small defaulters? Justice demands that either all loans be written off or all defaulters be made to return the money borrowed by them.